MLB insiders projecting seismic Houston Astros roster shakeup

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In many aspects this has been a good week for the Astros as they hired their new manager Joe Espada, and it appears GM Dana Brown was firmly in charge of the process.

On the other hand, we've seen numerous reports about Alex Bregman's future, or lack their of, in an Astros uniform. Bob Nightengale and our own John Granato are hearing that this will likely be Bregman's last year with the club, and he will undoubtedly receive a contract offer that the Astros will be unwilling to match.

Granato has also reported Bregman is buying a house in Arizona, read into that what you will.

Manny Machado received an 11-year contract extension last season worth $350 million, which includes a no-trade clause with no op-outs. And if you compare Bregman's career numbers to Machado's, you could make a case Breggy deserves as much if not more.

Machado’s lifetime batting average: .279. On-base percentage: 339. Slugging:.490. OPS: .829.

Bregman’s lifetime batting average :. 274. On-base percentage: .373. Slugging: .487. OPS: .861.

We know the Astros don't hand out deals with this many years on them, so we need to prepare for life after Bregman. Which brings us to Kyle Tucker. As it stands now, most believe Tucker will leave the following year, for the same reason as Bregman.

Justin Verlander is another player to keep an eye on. If he doesn't reach 140 innings pitched in 2024, his deal for 2025 won't vest, and he could be gone after the 2024 season.

On the bright side, it looks like the Astros will work to re-sign Jose Altuve, but to be fair, he's not looking for an 10-year deal. Altuve will be 34 in May, and reportedly would like to play until he's 40. The Astros may not want to go that many years, but a 4-year deal could make a lot of sense for both parties.

But based on everything that was outlined above, we can make the case that the 2024 season will be the last legitimate opportunity for the Astros to cement their dynasty with a third championship.

Plus, when preparing for life after Bregman and one year later Tucker, there's one player in particular that could make us feel better as the team transitions in 2024 and 2025.

Jeremy Pena. If Pena can return to form and hit 20-25 home runs and bat around .250, we would feel a lot better about losing Bregman's bat in the infield. He's also a right-handed hitter like Bregman that could take advantage of the Crawford Boxes.

Be sure to watch the video above as we cover everything mentioned above and much more!

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Gerrit Cole and Hunter Brown share the same agent now. Composite Getty Image.

There's no denying that this year's World Series champs (LA Dodgers) have some serious firepower on their roster. And one of the ways they were able to assemble such a talented team involved players like Shohei Ohtani being willing to differ their money.

Just this week, there was some speculation that the Yankees could do something similar when restructuring Gerrit Cole's contract, that would allow them more flexibility in the present.

The Yankees ended up calling Cole's bluff about opting out, and no adjustment was made to the contract.

But this situation got us thinking, would the Astros consider a tactic like this to maximize the roster? At this point, it doesn't seem all that likely. Just last year, the team handed out a $95 million contract to Josh Hader, without any differed money.

The other factor that also has to come into play is the tax threshold. The organization would have to give the okay to go over it again in order to make a splash signing this offseason. Which unfortunately does not sound like the plan right now when listening to GM Dana Brown at the Winter Meetings.

Astros pitcher hires a new agent

Now that MLB free agency is in full swing, most of the attention moving forward will be focused on players like Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, and Juan Soto.

But for Astros fans, there might be someone else to keep an eye on this offseason and next. Starting pitcher Hunter Brown quietly hired super agent Scott Boras recently.

With Brown still another season away from his first year of arbitration, he should be with the Astros for the foreseeable future.

However, the hiring of Boras does raise some interesting questions. Why make the move now? Certainly, Brown could use some more cash, as he's set to make less than a million in 2025.

Perhaps Brown wants to land some HEB commercials to fatten his wallet. And if Bregman does leave the team in free agency, a spot will open up for another player, in theory. And three of the players in the HEB ads are represented by Boras (Jose Altuve, Lance McCullers Jr. and Bregman).

Jeremy Pena has been stacking cash from Taquerias Arandas for several years now, maybe Brown would like an opportunity to do an endorsement similar to that.

I say all this half kidding, but Brown does look like the future ace of this staff, and I'm sure there are plenty of advertisers that would have interest in Hunter.

There is another element that could have initiated the hiring of Boras. Would Brown be willing to sign an extension early with the Astros similar to the deal the team made with Cristian Javier?

Their situations are actually pretty comparable, except Javier was one year further into his career (3 years of MLB service time) and eligible for arbitration before agreeing to the extension.

If Brown was heading into arbitration this offseason, it wouldn't be surprising at all for the Astros to be considering a long-term deal with him that buys up all his arbitration years. The 'Stros love these types of contract extensions. We've seen them do it with Bregman, the aforementioned Javier, and others.

One of the main differences though between Brown and Javier is their rookie year numbers. Brown only pitched 20.1 innings in his first season (2022). While Javier pitched 54.1 innings his rookie year. However, his rookie season was in 2020, so Javier completed a full year of service time despite the shortened season. Whereas Brown didn't get called up until September 2022.

Another difference is performance. Javier never posted an ERA over 3.55 in his first three seasons. As opposed to Brown, who had a disastrous year in 2023. He made 29 starts, recording an ERA over 5.

It wasn't until May of 2024 that Brown started using his two-seam fastball with great success and becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in the American League.

The Astros had a bigger sample size to judge Javier. However, if Brown has another quality season in 2025, Houston and Brown should definitely be having conversations about an extension. Especially with Framber Valdez being in the final year of his contract in 2025. Hunter could be the unquestioned ace one year from now.

Still, though, there are some concerns with handing out these early extensions. For example, if the Astros had it to do over again, would they still extend Javier?

After receiving his extension before the 2023 season, he went on to post the highest ERA of his career (4.56), and then blew out his elbow in May 2024.

And if we're going by Luis Garcia's recovery timeline from Tommy John surgery, we may not see Javier pitch at all in 2025.

So even with a sample size of three terrific seasons, the Javier extension looks like a miss with the benefit of hindsight. It will be interesting to see if that deal impacts Dana Brown's decision-making going forward.

Especially since Javier was Dana's first big contract extension as the Astros GM.

Be sure to watch the video as we discuss how the Astros can get the most out of their roster, the pros and cons of signing Hunter Brown early, and much more!

*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and Charlie Pallilo discuss varied Astros topics. The post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon. Find all via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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